Page 161 of Kingdom of Ash

When Morath reached their shore at last, swords bright in the gray day, Aedion let out a roar and charged.

The ilken had learned that a shape-shifter was amongst them, and wore a wyvern’s skin. Lysandra realized it after she’d swept for them, leaping from the army’s ranks to slam into a cluster of three.

Three others had been waiting, hiding in the horde below. An ambush.

She’d barely taken out two, snapping off their heads with her spiked tail, before their poisoned claws had forced her to flee. So she’d drawn the ilken back toward her own lines, right into the range of Ren’s archers.

They’d gotten the ilken down—barely. Shots to the wings that allowed Lysandra to rip their heads from their bodies.

As they’d fallen, she’d dove for the ground, shifting as she went. She landed as a ghost leopard, and unleashed herself upon the foot soldiers already pushing against Terrasen’s joined shields.

The skilled unity of the Bane was nothing against the sheer numbers forcing them back. The Fae warriors, the Silent Assassins—Ansel and Galan’s few remaining soldiers spread between them—neither of those lethal units could halt them, either.

So she clawed and tore and sundered, black bile burning her throat. Snow turned to mud beneath her paws. Corpses piled, men both human and Valg screamed.

Aedion’s voice shattered down the lines, “Hold that right flank!”

She dared a glance toward it. The ilken had concentrated their forces there, slamming into the men in a phalanx of death and poison.

Then another order from the prince, “Hold fast on the left!”

He’d repositioned the Bane amongst the right and left flanks to account for their wobbling on the southern plains, yet it was not enough.

Ilken tore into the cavalry, horses shrieking as poisoned talons ripped out their innards, riders crushed beneath falling bodies.

Aedion galloped toward the left flank, some of his Bane following.

Lysandra sliced through soldier after soldier, arrows flying from both armies.

Still Morath advanced. Onward and harder, driving the Bane back as if they were little more than a branch blocking their path.

Her breath burned in her lungs, her legs ached, yet she kept fighting.

There would be nothing left of them by sundown if they kept at it like this.

The other men seemed to realize it, too. Looked beyond the demons they fought to the tens of thousands still behind in orderly rows, waiting to kill and kill and kill.

Some of their soldiers began to turn. Fleeing the front lines.

Some outright hurled away their shields andsprintedout of the path of Morath.

Morath seized on it. A wave crashing to shore, they slammed into their front line. Right into the center, which had never broken, even when the others had wobbled.

They punched a hole right through it.

Chaos reigned.

Aedion roared from somewhere, from the heart of hell, “Re-form the lines!”

The order went ignored.

The Bane tried and failed to hold the line. Ansel of Briarcliff bellowed to her fleeing men to get back to the front, Galan Ashryver echoing her commands to his own soldiers. Ren shouted to his archers to remain, but they too abandoned their posts.

Lysandra slashed through the shins of one Morath soldier, then ripped the throat from another. None of Terrasen’s warriors remained a step behind her to decapitate the fallen bodies.

No one at all.

Over. It was over.

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